


Diptember 2018

by redwoodroots



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Drabble, Fluff, Week 1 Dreams, diptember2018, week 2 supernatural, week 3 mysteries, week 4 family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-07 00:29:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15897228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redwoodroots/pseuds/redwoodroots
Summary: Dipper has a minor freak-out about the future and Mabel boops some sense into him.  Fluff, light bantering, and sibling bonding to follow.  Paper UFO not included.





	1. Week 1: Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper has a minor freak-out about the future and Mabel boops some sense into him. Fluff, light bantering, and sibling bonding to follow. Paper UFO not included.

When Mabel walked into their bedroom, ready to head straight to dreamland, the place was a mess. Papers, colorful brochures, and crumpled-up notes carpeted the floor. It looked like that one time he and Grunkle Ford had summoned a brain-eating wizard from their board game. Dipper himself was sitting smack in the middle of the mess, surrounded by a nest of chewed pens. His head was bent over his new laptop, and he was typing furiously. 

She sighed. “Dipper, I thought you said you were done writing petitions to drive alien spaceships.” 

“This isn't for the spaceship, I finished the last petition an hour ago. It's already up on the Space Lizard forum.”

“There's a forum now?” 

“Of course. Sewers, websites – hiding in plain sight is the best disguise. Also, do you mind?” He made a shooing motion at her foot. 

She moved it and picked up the sheaf of papers she'd been standing on. “What _is_ all this, and why is it blocking the path to my sleep?”

“These are all the forms you'd need to fill out to get accepted into college these days. Look at this!” He grabbed a bunch of papers and held them up. “These things all want your resume, GRE scores, 'Statement of Purpose' – what does that even mean? Do I have to know the purpose of my life at eighteen? I'm thirteen and I barely understand the purpose of P.E.! Give us a bunch of water balloons, we'll run around on our own just fine!” 

She rolled her eyes. “The purpose of life is love, doofus. But I don't see why you're looking to write _more_ essays when the school year barely started.” 

“Because if I don't start looking at this stuff now I'll fall behind!” 

“Fall behind what?” 

Dipper groaned and flopped over onto his back, holding the papers over his face. “Forget it. I have to read this. Just go to sleep.” 

Mabel sat down next to him and patted his arm. “C'mon, bro, I know obsessing over things is like, your _thing_ , but isn't it a little early for you to be freaking out over college applications?”

“I don't know... Just – look at this.” He flung out an arm, felt around until he hit his laptop, and turned the screen to face them. The screen showed a young man with black hair parted right down the middle. “Michael Kearney was only ten when he graduated college – in two years – and then at 14 got his Master's degree. And there was a video before that about Jacob Barnett, the youngest astrophysicist ever. And Great-Uncle Ford was reading college-level stuff in elementary school, and probably would've graduated college by the time he was my age if he'd had the money to go, and even then he was _still_ getting published in scholastic journals before he even finished middle school!” 

“He was definitely a nerdbot from an early age,” she agreed. “But, Dipper, there's no reason to feel pressured by any of this. It's like trying to compare donuts with ice cream. Sure, you're both sweet, and one of you sweats a lot when it's hot out, but you're both wonderful in their own sugary ways.” 

“That's kind of the problem.” Dipper sat up and turned to face her. “Mabel, what if my dream of having a ghost-hunting show is too...pedestrian? I don't expect myself to build the first satellite that leads to contact with alien life, or go popping in and out of dimensions like an interdimensional prairie dog. I can't compete with that. But I want to do something. Is making a show about ghosts really enough? Can I really make my mark competing with the factually inaccurate yet incredibly popular _Ghost Harassers?_ Should I try doing something _more?_ ” 

Mabel picked up the nearest college application. It was for W. Allstreet University, which, according to the tiny print at the top, was well-known for its programs in International Business and Socio-Political Science. She held it out to him. 

“But Dipper...will going here really make you _happy?_ ” 

He gave her a blank look. “What does that have to do with anything?” 

She dropped the paper on the floor. “Only that solving supernatural mysteries is your passion. I know that if I tried really hard to be smart at math or whatever, you would totally help me out, even though you'd definitely torture me with math puns.” 

“Hey, my math puns are –”

“Cruel and unusual torture, Dipper, but that's beside the point.” She wagged a finger at him. “My point is that I could try, and I'd get better, especially with your help. But I wouldn't be _happy_. My inner Mabel would be crying out for me to make paper-mache out of my homework, but instead I'd just be grinding my forehead against a textbook, wondering if I could learn through osmosis.”

Dipper's face twitched, hiding a smile. “You mean like you did last year when you thought you weren't going to pass science class?” 

“Exactly! Was it fun seeing me that miserable?” 

“No,” he said immediately. “Honestly, I was glad when it was over.” 

“I don't want to see you that miserable, either.” She took the application he was holding and, a few quick twists and folds later, sent a paper UFO went sailing through the air. “Now _this_ is what you know and love. So I say, do your TV show! It might crash and burn as hard as you did –”

“That was _one time_ –”

“But!! Even if your ghost hunter show goes horribly wrong, that doesn't mean you have to give up on your dream! You can always branch out and do a show about aliens!” She grinned and nudged him. “I mean, you already totaled one spaceship, so that means you have experience! You can do your show on anything you want!” 

“This is true,” Dipper said slowly. “I mean, I do tons of youtube videos on urban legends and supernatural creatures. I bet I could do specials or something on my ghost-hunting show. And even if I only did ghosts, overturning the prevailing scientific paradigms that ignore the existence of ectoplasmic entities would have some pretty profound philosophical implications even for the average layman!” 

“Exactly!” 

He glanced over the paper mess again. “I just... I want to make sure I'm doing something _real_ , you know? Something that matters.” 

She poked him in the chest. “Dipper H. Pines, you were inspired by the extraordinary nerdiness that is our Great-Uncle Ford. And now, somewhere out there, is a little baby dork who is waiting to be inspired by _you_. Are you gonna let Future Dork down?” 

“No, but – just one person isn't really –”

“Grunkle Stan taught us that even helping just one person is a worthy cause!” she shouted. “Now – are you gonna follow your dream, or are you willing to let poor little Future Dork down!?”

He cracked a smile. “I guess...follow my dream?”

“CORRECT!” She leaped to her feet and threw an armful of paper in the air like confetti. “Prepare yourself, world! DIPPER IS ABOUT TO UNLEASH GHOSTY GOODNESS UPON YOU!” 

Dipper smiled. “Thanks, Mabel. Now I remember why I tell you things.” 

“Because I'm the best sister ever WHY YES I AM THANK YOU!” She scooped up an application and tapped him on the head with it. “So are you gonna stress out over college applications, or are you going to check that Alien Lizard thing to see if they got your petition yet?” 

He laughed, waving her off. “I guess I'll check the site. It'll just take a second.” 

“Right,” she said, mockingly, since they both knew he'd be up until midnight. She bent down and kissed his cheek. “G'night, bro-bro. Have dorky dreams!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diptember 2018 starts off with sibling fluff! My goal is to make something for all 4 weeks. The weekly themes are: 
> 
> Week 1 - Dreams (Obviously)  
> Week 2 - Supernatural  
> Week 3 - Mysteries  
> Week 4 - Family
> 
> I am open to prompts!


	2. Week 2: Supernatural

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel makes a mysterious purchase from a yard sale, and Dipper tries convincing aliens to let him drive their spaceship!

“DipperDipperDipper!” Mabel raced up to him, her face shining with excitement, weaving through piles of used clothes and knick knacks. She'd spotted a yard sale on their way to school and insisted they check it out. “Look what I found!” 

“Is it something that will make us get to school faster?” Dipper asked. 

“It's a music box – look!” She held up her hands. Resting on her palms was a pale green music box shaped like an egg, with a thin gold line running lengthwise along the seam and several highly stylized flowers carved into the top. 

He squinted at it. “Those flowers look weirdly familiar...” 

“The lady said it never worked, so she gave it to me for free!” She grinned slyly. “I'm thinkin' if I made a certain culinary creation, my nerdy twin bro would be able to fix it right up!” 

“If you're talking marshmallow grilled cheese then we so have a deal.” 

 

He started on the music box late that night, after they'd finished homework and their parents had turned in. (They knew Dipper always stayed up late, and they'd long since given up trying to get him to sleep at a timely hour.) Waddles had stayed up with him for a while, probably because he thought it was an Easter Egg like the ones Mabel had given him to snack on. But the pig had long since retired to its bed in the corner, leaving Dipper alone to work at it. And the more he did, the more frustrated he became. 

“Dipprrr?” Mabel slurred, waking up after he'd nearly stabbed himself with a screwdriver. “Wut're you doin'?” 

“Are you _sure_ this thing is a music box?” Dipper asked, sitting on his bed and glaring at the thing. “It has no hinges, no nails, no clasp – and yet there is a tiny gap all the way around the seam except the long part so there really _should_ be hinges and there aren't!” 

“Pretty sure.” Mabel rolled over and rested her chin on the rail of the top bunk. “I mean, I know the lady said it didn't work, but when I shook it it made this really pretty chiming sound.” 

Dipper held it up to his ear and shook it. “I don't hear anything.” 

“Well not like _that_ ,” she said with a snort. She climbed down the ladder and he handed it over. “Here – you gotta shake it like _this!_ ” 

And she immediately started shaking it like a maraca. 

Dipper huffed. “Mabel, what are you even –”

“TADA!” 

She shoved the box right next to his ear. He jumped, startled, but then he heard it: a thin, silvery tune, a breeze wafting through slender chimes. But he'd no sooner heard it than it faded completely. 

“It stopped – can you do it again?” Dipper asked. 

Mabel gasped with delight. “An invitation to dance?! Why Dipper I'd be _delighted!_ ” She grabbed Dipper's hand, yanked him out of bed and started pulling him around the room, laughing. Dipper allowed it, half-smiling at his sister's typically crazy antics. The silvery sound grew in volume. Waddles woke up and snorted curiously. 

Dipper grinned. “Amazing! It must be motion-activated.”

“More like _fun_ activated!”

Dipper laughed – until he noticed something else about the music box. 

“Mabel, keep dancing, but look!” 

She looked. It was hard to tell because she had to keep shaking it up and down, but the weird flowers on the lid were changing shape. For a second Dipper thought the flowers might be 'dancing', too, but then the egg started glowing a pale yellow, and the slender lines of the flowers became more and more familiar, until they almost looked like – 

“Alien code!” Dipper shouted, just as the egg turned red. The soft silver chimes abruptly changed to a loud klaxon blare, so loud Dipper could feel it in his teeth. Waddles squealed and tried to burrow under the bunk beds. 

Mabel clapped her hands to her ears, dropping the egg. “OW! WHAT IS THAT?!” 

“I DON'T KNOW!” Dipper shouted back. He tried to cover it with a pillow, then two pillows and himself, then just plain smashing it with a hammer. But he couldn't turn it off or even quiet the sound. Their parents slept like the dead, but the sound was so bad it was bound to wake them up eventually!

“TURN IT OFF!” Mabel shouted. 

“I'M TRYING!” He looked around quickly and grabbed his journal – he'd started one this summer and included a lot of the codes he'd found in Gravity Falls. He hurried to flip to the page where he'd stuck a photo of himself and the alien text he'd seen at Crash Site Omega. “OKAY!” he shouted. “I THINK I CAN DECODE THE TEXT! IT SAYS – uh...” He double-checked the translation. “IT SAYS 'REMOTE SHIP ALARM'?”

Suddenly the klaxon shifted to a high-pitch screech, then broke off into someone speaking. 

“– _told_ you we dropped it around here somewhere!” said a voice, which sounded very oddly like a rubber duck. “If you hadn't forgotten to charge the battery we would've found it ages ago!” 

“Oh, don't blame me just because you can't keep track of things,” grumbled a second voice. “We don't even need it, we always find our ship without it.”

“Don't forget that one horror story about the ship that never returned! If we didn't find this one I was going to fly us back to Centaur A for a new remote!” 

“I'm not going back there, that wefleki kept looking at me funny –”

“Uh, hello?” Dipper said. 

There was a brief moment of silence. 

“Oh great, someone _found_ it!” the first voice burst out. “Listen up, whoever you are, drop what you're holding and walk away, or we'll – we'll alien abduct you so hard you'll be seeing lights in the sky for years to come!” 

“You mean, like the stars?” Mabel asked. 

“Ye – I mean no!” 

“And who made a remote control that's dance-activated, because that is _awesome_ engineering!” 

“It's not 'dance activated,' the voice said indignantly. “When else would you flail your arms except in panic because you can't find where you parked in the intergalactic space mall?”

“Wait, are you really aliens?” Dipper said, leaning forward. “Which star do you come from? Are you here on vacation? Do you have a spaceship? Can I see it?” 

“He actually really wants to drive it,” Mabel told the egg. 

“And can I drive it just for like two seconds!?” 

“Wait,” said the second voice. “Are you 'Dipper-bottom-line-Pines-bottom-line-Paranormal-bottom-line-Investigator'?” 

“Yes! Yes, that's me!” 

“I've seen your petition online!” There was a clear smile in his voice. “I was impressed that you were able to outmaneuver the drone. That kind of flying definitely comes in handy when you're flying through clouds of carnivorous space comets.” 

Dipper leaned forward eagerly. “And I can totally do that! I think. D'you want a demonstration? I can show you how!” 

“Or you could just buy crunchy peanut butter,” Mabel said. 

Dipper elbowed her and made a _sh!!!_ motion. 

But the second alien sounded intrigued. “Peanut butter, you say?” 

“Sure! Just throw a scoop at any ol' space rock, and they'll eat it because _peanut butter_ , and then their jaws'll get stuck together and presto! No more ship-munching!” She paused. “Unless they're allergic to peanuts, in which case molasses should do the trick.”

“Fascinating.”

“But,” Dipper cut in, “if you still wanted those extremely high quality _aerial lessons_ as, you know, back-up, I could totally help you out with that!” 

The alien hesitated. 

“Well I'm doing it,” the first voice said finally. “The peanut butter plan is sheer brilliance, but I want a back-up plan in case it doesn't work out.” 

“As long as it gets me out of visiting Centauri A,” the second one grumbled. 

“Stay where you are,” the first alien told them. “We'll home in on the remotes signal!”  
Dipper's face lit up with excitement. He looked up, caught Mabel's eye, and the two of them dashed outside. Waddles was close behind. 

The backyard quiet devoid of life, save for the creepy-looking gnome in the rose bushes. The twins looked up. One of the stars in the sky was growing brighter by the second, until a disk-shaped spaceship the size of a city block was descending slowly above their house. Waddles oinked at it. 

“Omigosh, look!” Mabel squealed. As the UFO put on its brakes, jets of superheated gas hissed out of the vents on the bottom, searing strange designs into the grass. “It's lawn art, Dipper! _Space-shippy lawn art!_ ”

“And it just melted that creepy garden gnome,” Dipper said giddily, still clutching the spaceship's remote. He stood back a little farther to let the bottom dome of the ship touch down. His parents would probably think they pulled some crazy prank on the lawn, but who cared? He was about to drive a spaceship – an actual, real-life, still-functioning space ship, _with actual aliens inside of it!_ He was about to make First Contact, at least in this dimension! 

He was so thrilled he was practically dancing on the spot, clutching the space egg with excitement. “Oh man, oh man, this is gonna be so great, I can't wait to tell Great-Uncle Ford, I've gotta take pictures –”

Abruptly the spaceship stopped descending. The remote glowed. “Did you say 'Ford'?” the first alien asked. 

Dipper blinked. “Uh – yeah?” 

“Ford Pines, the human?” 

“Um, yeah!” 

“Four limbs, one head, twelve phalanges, also known as Sixer – that Ford?” 

Mabel gasped. “OMG you know him!! Are you his interdimensional space buddies?!” 

“Oh no we're not!” the alien barked, and the whole spaceship turned red. Metal cylinders jutted from the ship, and before he could blink, a wall of red laser fire light up the grass at his feet. He and Mabel jumped back with a yell, nearly hitting Waddles. The pig squealed and pressed into Mabel's leg. 

“HEY! What was that for?!” Dipper demanded. 

“We're not letting the family of an interdimensional criminal aboard just so he can steal our ship for spare parts!” the alien shouted. 

“Interdi – but – we're not criminals!” 

“Tell that to all the people he _stole_ from to build his so-called quantum death thingie!” the second alien spat. 

“You're not so much as _touching_ our ship!” the first alien growled. “And forget trying some other alien marks – we'll be making a very strongly worded post on the Space Lizard Forum, warning everyone about exactly what kind of scam you're trying to pull!” 

“But – but –”

The spaceship fired, so suddenly that Dipper, Mabel, and Waddles were all thrown tumbling back onto the porch. Heat seared their faces and light flashed through their closed eyelids. Waddles squealed. 

When Dipper opened his eyes, the lawn was a charred mess, and it looked like his mom's roses had melted right along with the creepy old gnome. 

He stared at the carnage. “Tell me that didn't just happen.” 

“Well...” Mabel sat up slowly, one arm around Waddles. “I _could_ , except that I'm trying to wrap my brain around the fact that _both_ of our Grunkles have actual criminal records. D'you think crime runs in the family?”

“I think the aliens thought it did,” he said numbly. “He did say Ford, right? Like actually Ford, not Stan pretending to be Ford? I didn't even know Ford _had_ a criminal record!

“Well if crime is inherited then I wanna be an art thief, or – oh! Maybe a masked vigilante! With rainbow powers!! Rainbow powers of JUSTICE!” 

He groaned. “I was _this close_ to being in an alien spaceship...” 

“Hey, Dipper, look!” She pointed. The space remote was still sitting on the burnt lawn, untouched and shiny as ever. “They left their thingie behind! We could call them and try to get them to change their minds!” 

He reached for it, but before he could touch it the remote made a dull thump noise and black smoke poured out of its seam. It had self-destructed. 

“Ah,” Mabel said. “Well...maybe they won't post on _all_ the Space Lizard Forums?” 

“ _Aaaauuuuggghh!!!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ended Dipper's dream of driving an alien space ship. 
> 
> Still available for Diptember prompts!
> 
> Week 3: Mysteries  
> Week 4: Family
> 
> Comment! Question! Cluck like a chicken!


	3. Week 3: Mystery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is stalking Quatro and Tracey. Finally they decide enough is enough, and try to turn the tide on their unknown assailant...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Diptember!! And happy 18th birthday, ProblematicPines!!

“Did you hear that?”

Tracey looked up from where he was patching a hole in his raincoat. “Hear what?”

Quatro didn't answer. He pushed open the flap of their tent and looked outside. 

They'd moved the tent a few times over the last year – mostly to keep people from finding them, and once when they realized they'd set up camp in Steve's favorite stomping grounds. (Neither of them wanted to find out if they'd survive being squashed as flat as the paper they'd been printed on.)

The current location was pretty good – a small clearing with a space in front like a lawn, surrounded by trees, not a river or stream or even a little creek in sight. They'd spotted a hawktopus up in the branches of one of the trees, which seemed to scare away a lot of the smaller predators like raccoons and snakes. Better yet, while it wasn't too far from town, it was a solid mile from here to the nearest hiking path. Nobody was likely to run across them by accident. 

But the noise Quatro had heard definitely sounded like a person. Like a gasp, maybe, or someone clearing their throat. If someone had found them...

He looked around. The clearing was empty. 

“Quatro? Everything ok out there?” 

“Fine,” Quatro called back. But he still felt uneasy, like someone was watching them. Mabel would call it paranoia, but – 

He felt a pang. Man, Dipper Classic didn't know how lucky he was to have Mabel with him. 

Tracey poked his head out of the tent. “We're running kind of low on spare plastic,” he said. “Think we could sneak some out of the Swap Meet next Friday?”

“Huh? Yeah...”

Tracey glanced at the forest. “Nothing's out there. Quit being paranoid about trespassers and be paranoid about water. Fall's coming and I don't want to get caught without like three extra raincoats each.” 

Quatro smirked. “If only there was some way we could laminate ourselves.”

“Well, until we figure out how, get in here and help me with the sewing.” 

 

“Is this what I think it is?” 

Tracey sighed. “Quatro, we are like two minutes from home, and this backpack is killing me. Can we just dump this in the tent and come back?” 

The backpack really was heavy. It was full of supplies they had “found” around town – including food. Apparently, although they couldn't drink anything, their paper bodies still got hungry. 

“Hang on.” Quatro squatted down, examining a bush closely.

Tracey scowled. “Seriously, Q, if you don't get your butt moving then _you_ can carry this thing.”

“Look at this.” Quatro held up a clump of grayish-white hair. “What does this look like to you?”

Tracey narrowed his eyes. “Gnome hair. You think they passed this way? Oh, no – our stuff! Don't tell me they took our multi-sided die collection!” He started forward.

“Hold up.” Quatro held out his arm and pointed. There was another clump a few feet further on, and a few more strands a little ways beyond that. If there were that many still on the branches, that meant nothing had come along to dislodge them, so the hair could be fresh. The gnomes might be just ahead, waiting for them. 

The two of them glanced at each other and split up, moving soundlessly through the forest. 

The strands of white hair formed a complete circle all the way around their tent. The good news was there didn't appear to be any other sign of the gnomes, and their tent looked empty, at least from a distance. 

By the time Quatro had completed his half of the circle, Tracey was already there waiting for him, his expression grim. 

“Well,” he said, “I wish I could say you're just being our usual paranoid self, but...” 

“We should relocate,” said Quatro. “And maybe steal a leaf blower the next time we go to town.” 

“Two leaf blowers. I am _so_ not getting forcibly engaged to a species that bathes in squirrels.”

 

They settled in a shallow cave halfway up Multibear Mountain. They'd met the Multibear while hiking through the forest one day. He wasn't the fiercest guy in the forest (although he had excellent taste in music). Still, most creatures kept their distance from his home, so they figured they'd be safe. They set up their tent, tied their food two ledges above them to keep it safe from animals, and started exploring their new front yard. 

The clones had been there for a couple of days when it happened. 

Tracey had found some strange tracks outside their tent. It alternated between two paw prints and a long, smooth indentation, like something that was half-badger, half-snake. 

Naturally, they investigated. 

The tracks led through the forest and wound partway up the side of the mountain, ending in a thin cave cut into the mountain – like someone had stuck a knife into the rock and then filled in the bottom with dirt. It was too small for them to fit through the opening, but Quatro lay on his stomach and turned on a flashlight. 

Small green eyes stared back at them. The creatures really were half-badger half-snake!

The clones coaxed the babies out with morsels of freeze-dried jerky and marshmallows. They took turns playing and making sketches until Tracey saw a momma badger heading their way. They hurried to leave before she could spot them. Badgers had long sharp claws, perfect for digging, and they did not want to see what those claws could do to paper!

“That was so _cool!_ ” Tracey said, as he slid down a steeper part of the mountain trail. “And there were like _five_ of them! D'you think we could go back and get one for a pet?”

Quatro grinned. “Like instead of a guard dog? What would it be instead, a guard...badger-snake? Snake-badger?”

“Nah, you gotta mush the words. I bet Mabel would call it a –”

“ _Snadger_ ,” they both said together.

The thought of their sister quieted their laughter. Technically she wasn't even their sister, she was Dipper Classic's sister. But they had all of Dipper's memories, right up until the beginning of the summer. When she was six and took a bath in red humming bird juice “to attract the jewel-birds” and came out looking like a human strawberry. The time they were nine and she got really into stars – she even stitched the green star on his baseball cap. 

And then there was Mom and Dad. But they weren't really Tracey and Quatro's mom and dad, were they? They belonged to Dipper Classic. Even Stan and Ford – the _actual author of the journals_ was Dipper Classic's; they'd seen the whole Weirdmaggedon thing from a hideout in the forest. The whole family belonged to Dipper Classic. Even the Snadgers had a family to hang out with. Meanwhile Tracey and Quatro were stuck in the forests for the rest of their lives, alone, forever. 

Their tent came into view. Home sweet hole in the rock. 

“I hope Dipper's having fun with them,” Tracey said, his voice low and bitter. 

Quatro glanced at him. “Hey,” he said gently, and moved to put an arm around his twin. 

_THWACK!_

“AAAGH!” 

The boys leaped back – an ax had landed in a tree barely two inches from their noses, but before they could react, a huge form emerged from their tent. It was four-legged, shaggy, with burning yellow eyes beneath a fringe of matted fur. 

It lifted its massive head. Then it rose up on its hind legs, taller, taller, infinitely tall. It opened its jaws. “ _RAAAAUGHHH!_ ”

The boys shrank back, perfectly silent, clutching each other. They were halfway hidden behind a low bush. If it looked down...if it saw them...

It landed on its paws, so heavily the ground shook and they fell on their butts. It swung its head around, glaring hatred at the world. One long, white tooth hung over its bottom lip, gleaming like a saber. 

They didn't breathe. 

Finally, after what felt like hours, the beast turned and moved slowly into the forest, coming within ten feet of the clones. Quatro was practically shaking, sure that the beast would smell them, but it ignored them completely. 

“Oh sweet Moses,” Tracey whimpered, when he was sure the beast was gone. He slid into a puddle on the ground. 

“Stand up,” Quatro ordered, but his voice was shaking, too. 

“What for? It's only my, myself, and us!” He started laughing hysterically. “I don't even know what that _was!_ What the heck, I thought we were dead meat!”

“You mean dead paper.” Quatro stood up awkwardly. His knees had gone stiff, but he forced them to move, heading towards the tent. 

“Wait – Quatro, where are you going?”

“To check the tent. Don't you find it odd that it went inside?”

“It probably wanted food or something, who cares?” Quatro heard Tracey roll to his feet. “Quatro, I'm serious, that thing could come back!”

“It wouldn't have gone in there for food, we tied it two ledges above us.”

“Yeah and it was probably looking for a way up! Come on, seriously! Let's back up and get out of here!”

Quatro opened the tent and stepped inside. 

It was chaos. Their sleeping bags were shredded, the chemistry kits were smashed, The bunsen burner, portable generator, and radio had all been ripped apart, right down to the batteries, which were oozing acid across the ground. 

But that wasn't the worst of it. Most of the mess was clearly the remains of a pile of food: fresh turkey legs, candy wrappers, empty bowls with smears of brown sauce and butter. 

“What... _is_ this?” Tracey asked, looking over Quatro's shoulders. “That's not our food. Unless you went to town when I wasn't looking.”

“No. It wasn't me. Someone else left this here as _bait_.” He spat the last word, feeling an icy anger drive through his bones. He turned to look Tracey squarely in the eye. “You saw that ax. This food was put this here deliberately, so something dangerous would come and eat it – and then eat us.”

“But...we keep moving around...”

“Then it's obvious, isn't it?” Quatro set his jaw. “Someone is trying to track us down and kill us. So I say, it's time to fight back.”

 

They hadn't wasted any time. They left the tent exactly as it was, so that their attacker would think he'd gotten the job done. That would give them some lead time. 

Meanwhile, Quatro and Tracey moved stealthily through the forest, keeping to the shadows and the alleys once they reached the town. The sun was casting long shadows over the streets by the time they reached the Dump. It was a gold mine of rusty metal, broken pipes, worn-out rope, loose gears – anything and everything they could use to make lay a very effective trap. 

“Wait,” Tracey said, once they'd slipped through the gates. “We should make weapons first. So we can defend ourselves.”

Quatro looked around. “There's a pipe. We could use that like Stan's bat.”

“Better idea.” Tracey knelt and rummaged through the nearest pile of trash. “AGH! Paper cut!”

“Can we even get those?”

“Apparently. Look.” Tracey held up what he'd made: a crude but functional crossbow, held together with bits of metal twine. “Found a broken screwdriver we can use for a bolt, too, but it'll only fire once.” He handed it to Quatro. 

Quatro nodded. “Nice work. Okay, let's go. If we need to we can stop by the hardware store and lift a blowtorch.”

Tracey frowned. They'd never stolen anything that big before. 

Quatro caught the look on his face. “What? Would you rather skewer or get skewered?”

“Let's just find the trap stuff and get out before someone sees us.”

They started moving through the dump. Most of it was just stacks of crushed cars, but there were old machine parts, wooden crates, even worn-out microwaves and washing machines stuffed under piles of disintegrating cardboard. 

They grabbed a moth-eaten tarp and started piling on anything they thought could be useful. Screws, scraps of metal, pipes, trashcan lids, old cell phone cases. 

“Hey, I think I found something,” Tracey said. 

Quatro looked up from breaking open a piggy bank, and Tracey pointed. In front of them stood a ramshackle shed with the words “McSucket” graffitied on it in big neon letters. It looked about ready to fall apart. 

Quatro tensed. “You think anyone lives in there?”

“I could check.”

“Says the guy who didn't want me to go into the tent!”  
Tracey shrugged and lowered his voice. “Look, either I check, or we should get going right now. We don't want anyone finding us here.”

Quatro had just opened his mouth to reply when they heard a noise – a low, long creak, like a rusty hinge. 

They froze. 

“What was that?” Tracey whispered, but Quatro motioned frantically for him to be quiet. The two of them ducked behind the nearest stack of rusty cars. 

A silhouette grew larger and larger on the ground beyond the cars. It was lumpy and misshapen, incredibly shaggy, and when it turned its head they could see what was unmistakeably a long, threatening snout. 

They drew back, Tracey with one hand over his mouth, smothering a scream. Had the hunter found them already? Was that the hunter? Or had the hunter sent the thing from the cave after them?! They were trapped at the back of the dump and the fence was too high and smooth to scale. They were trapped if they didn't think of something, fast!

Quatro motioned frantically to Tracey, miming out a plan. Tracey turned white but nodded shakily. Very, very quietly, Tracey picked up the nearest piece of piping. Quatro knelt and readied his crossbow. Then he held up three fingers. The shadow drew closer and closer. They could hear the shuffle of its feet, the faint, hoarse rattle of its breath. 

Three...two...one...

NOW!

Tracey leaped out with a yell, ax held high over his head. 

“HYYAAAAAH!” 

“ _ERRAAAGHYAAA!_ ” 

Quatro took aim and – 

“Quatro, WAIT!”

_Thunk!_

The bolt of the crossbow quivered in the ground, not even a centimeter from their assailant. It was an old man – the same guy who'd built the gobblewonker, wearing worn but freshly cleaned clothes under a shaggy white beard. Tracey was sitting on his chest, pipe still raised high, breathing hard. 

“Well pickle my porkrinds,” the man gasped, one hand over his heart. “That'll clear out an artery or two!”

Tracey tried to look fierce. “You're that robotics guy, aren't you? What do you want with us?”

McGucket smiled. “Aw, Ah didn't mean ta scare ya, li'l fella! Ah just came by because I was feelin' a touch nostalgic.”

“Nostalgic?” Quatro asked, coming out from behind the trash heap. “I thought you lived in the Gobblewonker or something. Was that your shed back there?”

“It used to be,” the man said. His voice was starting to sound a little strained. “If ya'll don't mind...” He gestured to Tracey, still sitting on his chest. 

“Oh – right. Sorry.” He stood and helped the man up. 

“Thank ye kindly!” 

“You're welc – wait, aren't you the one who's been hunting us?” Tracey backed up, leveling the ax at him suspiciously. “That white hair and stuff was yours, wasn't it? And that ax – you've been tracking us and trying to kill us!”

The old man opened his mouth to reply when a voice called out from the front of the dump. 

“Mr. McGucket?” 

“Over here!” McGucket called back, before Tracey or Quatro could stop him. 

The clones immediately stepped closer together.

“What was that, who did you call?” Quatro demanded.

“Just my assistant,” McGucket said, as a young, broad-shouldered man in a flannel shirt walked around the corner. 

Tracey gaped at him. “Is that...Wendy's brother?”

Marcus pushed his bangs out of his eyes. “Yeah. I, um. I'm good at lumberjack stuff, but it's not really my thing, so Mr. McGucket hired me as his lab assistant.” 

“Marcus was checking on his family's cabin when he came across your tent,” McGucket explained. “When he told me there were a coupla extra Dippers wanderin' around the woods, I had to see it for mahself. Ya weren't home – I walked all the way 'round it to check – but it just didn't sit right with me to see the two of ya livin' by yourselves. And so close to Thanksgiving!”

The clones blinked. “It's Thanksgiving?”

“Near enough. Ah went back to bring the two of ya some turkey dinner, but the whole campsite was gone! Took me a few days to find it again. And then, well...” He looked sheepishly at Marcus.

“He was used to dump animals, not forest animals,” Marcus explained. “But I work in the forest all the time, and I knew there'd be some dangerous animals interested in that food. Soon as I Mr. McGucket told me where the new camp was, I ran to clean it up, but I got there too late – something was already inside. You two were almost back to the tent. I was too far away to shout, so –”

Tracey's eyes widened. “You didn't throw the ax to hurt us, you were trying to stop us before we walked in on it!”

“That is some crazy marksmanship right there,” Quatro said admiringly. He looked at McGucket. “Sorry for almost killing you.”

“And accusing you of attempted murder,” Tracey added. 

McGucket just waved his hand. “Don't give it a second thought. Point is, Ah'm just glad y'all are okay.” He peered at them. “So which one of you is the real Dipper? Ain't yer family missin' ya by now?”

They glanced at each other. 

“We're – we're not the real Dipper,” Tracey said haltingly. 

“We're clones,” Quatro added. “There was the magic copy machine in the Shack. Dipper Classic made clones of himself for...for an entirely mature and justified reason...and the other clones aren't around anymore. That just leaves us. He's Tracey,” Quatro said, gesturing. “And I'm Quatro.”

Marcus pushed his bangs back. “Copy machine clones, huh?” he said, peering at them. “ _Do_ you even eat?”

“We can eat!” Tracey said defensively. “Liquids'll kill us, but we still get hungry just fine!”

A broad grin appeared on McGucket's face. “Well ain't this perfect! Since Ah accidentally ruined yer tent, why don't y'all come and stay at my place 'till Thanksgivin'? Mah son and Ah would love the company!”

Tracey blinked. “Really?”

“'Course! Heck, if y'all like it enough, you could even stay on as mah lab assistants while Marcus is in school!”

“Hey,” Marcus protested half-heartedly. “I thought you were gonna show me how your supercomputer worked.”

“Ah will, Ah will! B'lieve me, I've got plenty of inventions to go 'round! So what do ya say?” he asked, turning back to the clones. 

They were staring at him. 

“Um...what?” Tracey managed. 

“You want to have us for dinner?” Quatro repeated. 

“You want us as lab assistants?”

“At your house?”

“Like, to _stay?_ ”

“Well, sure!” McGucket nodded. “Don't seem right to have you two boys by yourself. But ya don't have ta stay if you prefer campin' in the woods. Why not try stayin' with me for a while, then leave if ya feel like it?”

“...Ok,” Quatro croaked. 

“Great! Gotcher campin' gear?”

“We left it all behind,” Tracey said faintly. “It was pretty torn up.”

“Well then let's go shoppin'! Y'all need some clean clothes, that's fer sure!”

McGucket turned and started out of the dump. Marcus caught up with him, and Tracey and Quatro followed, walking in a daze. 

Was this for real? This crazy local kook and Wendy's brother had been trying to help them this whole time? They hadn't been alone? And now McGucket wanted them to come and stay at his place and eat Thanksgiving dinner, and then _keep_ staying, like they were – like they could be a fam – 

“Don't think the 'F' word,” Tracey whispered. “You'll jinx it.”

“The 'F' word?” Quatro whispered back, grinning. “Dude, you make it sound like a cuss word.”  
Tracey gave a snort of laughter. It wasn't even that funny, but man, if this worked out, then maybe they really could be – 

“Oh!” McGucket said, stopping suddenly outside the gates. “Marcus, could you go get mah wallet? Ah left it in mah other overalls, right by the front door!”

“Sure thing, Mr. M.” Marcus turned and started up the street – down the road that led straight up to Northwest Manor. 

The clones' jaws dropped. 

“The _mansion_ is your _house?!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was not supposed to be this long why
> 
> Next up is the final Diptember theme – FAMILY!! Guess I already touched on that here, but there's always room for more!! Send me comments, prompts, and chocolate! ESPECIALLY THE CHOCOLATE!


	4. Week 4: Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel: Whenever I get cold, I steal someone’s jacket, but then I forget I have it. I have at least seven jackets in my room that aren’t mine, and the others are starting to complain.
> 
> Dipper: The other friends?
> 
> Mabel: The other jackets.
> 
> In which Mabel and Dipper care for a family of magical living jackets!

Dipper stopped typing and looked up. He could've sworn he heard a faint scratching noise. Then again, he'd been working on editing his latest _Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained_ episode for hours and it was now 2 AM, so he might've just been hearing things. He went back to typing. 

_Scritch, scritch._

He looked up again, frowning. That time there was definitely a noise. 

He got up and stepped carefully over Waddles, who was asleep on the floor. Mabel was snoring in the top bunk. He tip-toed over to the closet, turned the doorknob veeeery slowly, and then swung it open in one big rush. 

There was nothing there. 

Dipper grabbed a camera stick and poked it into the clothes. All he saw was the usual mess – his vests and orange shirts, plus all of Mabel's sweaters and a few jackets she'd borrowed from her friends. He even checked the shelf above the clothes, but his paranormal paraphernalia was undisturbed. 

He yawned, closed the closet door, and went back to bed. Definitely time to actually go to sleep. Maybe he'd just imagined it. 

 

The next two nights, though, Dipper heard the exact same weird noises coming from the closet. And it was definitely coming from the closet, not the roof, which ruled out stuff like raccoons or rats from outside. Finally, Dipper set up nighttime recorders so he could catch whatever it was in the act. 

Saturday morning found him setting up his laptop to watch the feed while he ate his breakfast. Mabel walked in just as he was pouring himself some cereal, with Waddles following close behind, oinking sleepily. 

“M-m-moooorning, bro-brain,” she said, yawning hugely. “What fantastic nerdery are you up to today?”

“There's something in the closet and I'm going to find out what it is.”

She grinned. “There are so many jokes for that I don't even know where to start! Let's see, is there a wozzet in the closet? Or perhaps a skeleton – figurative or literal? Oh! How 'bout a monster? One with shaggy blue fur and purple polka dots!”

Dipper sat down at the table and pressed slow fast forward on the recordings. He took a spoonful of cereal and munched it, still listening to Mabel with half an ear. A flicker of movement on the film caught his eye. He hit play – 

“ _PHHFFFF!_ ”

“Ew! Dipper! Spit takes are _much_ cooler without chunks of chewed Cheerios!”

“Mabel Mabel LOOK!” 

He grabbed his sister's arm and pulled her close, jabbing a finger at the screen. Mabel gasped. 

One of the jackets she'd borrowed from her friends was _moving!_

And it wasn't like there was anything in the jacket, either. As the jacket slowly raised its sleeve, the angle of the camera clearly showed that there was nothing at all moving around inside it. The sleeves of the jacket, both totally empty, just raised up on their own, appeared to stretch on the hanger, then shook themselves out. Then the left sleeve reached out and tapped the jacket in front of it. 

_And the other jacket moved, too!_

Mabel squealed, grabbed Dipper's shoulder, and shook him vigorously. “OH MY SWEATER SOCKS, ARE YOU SEEING THIS!?”

“I'm seeing it, I'm seeing it!”

They watched as all seven of Mabel's borrowed jackets come to life, stretching and yawning with their necklines as though they'd been asleep. The first one, which had faded red roses stitched up both sleeves, hopped off its hanger and started swinging on it like it was an acrobat. The jackets next to it, including a denim jacket covered in little round anime buttons, were pushed against the door, creating the _scritch scritch_ noise that Dipper had been hearing. A very puffy green jacket flapped its sleeve at Rose Jacket until it stopped, then checked to make sure Buttons and the other jacket were alright. 

“Awww, it's like the mommy jacket!” Mabel whispered. 

“Or the dad. Do jackets have genders?”

“Probably not! OOOH!”

The smallest jacket, which was black denim with bright aqua rhinestones stitched into its collar, had reached over and was shyly tugging on the sleeve of a heavy-looking pink jacket. The pink jacket pretended to resist, but after a moment scooched closer on its hanger and hugged Rhinestones, the cuffs of their sleeves folding together. 

“They're in _love!_ ” Mabel leaped away from the table and went bounding down the hall. 

“Mabel, where –”

“I MUST MATCHMAKE MY JACKETS, DIPPER!”

“Shh, Mom and Dad are still asleep!”

Dipper caught up with Mabel in their room, but when she opened the door the jackets were perfectly still. 

“Aw, c'mooon,” she whined. “It's okay, we totally know you're secretly alive!”

No response. 

“Very well, you leave me no choice!” She began pulling everything out of the closet. 

“Mabel, what are you –”

“Silence, mortal!”

Dipper knew better than to mess with her when she got like this. Instead, he took out his camera and started filming. 

In about ten minutes, she'd made a huge pile of knitted sweaters in the middle of the carpet. (It was actually taller than Dipper.) She pulled a quilt off of her bed and folded it so it covered the closet floor, then got all the buttons out of her sewing kit and sprinkled them around. Finally she went to get all the lint rollers they owned from the hall closet and threw them in a pile on one side of the closet. 

“There!”

“A...jacket nest, I'm assuming?” Dipper asked. 

“Exactly! Now for just one final touch...” She took the sleeves of the jackets and started tying them in loose knots, pairing them up. Rhinestones went with Pink, Buttons went with Polka Dots, Bunny went with Rose. 

“What about the puffy green one?”

“They're a strong, independent jacket, who don't need no jacket!”

“Riiiight. Aren't your friends going to ask for their jackets back, though?”

Mabel laughed. “Are you kidding? My friends have long since accepted that they will never rescue their clothes from the sweater vortex that is my closet! Now set up your cameras, nerd-bro, and let the matchmaking commence!”

 

Dipper diligently sketched and recorded the jackets as their little handkerchief babies grew up. First the handkerchiefs simply got bigger bigger. Then, when they were about the size of dinner plates, they began spontaneously growing pockets, embroidery, even zippers and buttons. Dipper's personal favorite was a baby jacket decorated with light pink rhinestones in an intriguing spiral pattern, while Mabel doted on a mini-jacket covered in rose-red bunnies in a field of golden grass. 

Then, after nearly a week of observations, Dipper and Mabel woke up one morning to find the Button jacket on the floor of their bedroom. Waddles was absently chewing on one button. 

Mabel gasped. “No, Waddles, that's not a chew toy, that's a friend!” She practically flew down the ladder and rescued the jacket. 

Dipper sat up, blinking himself awake. “That's new. Isn't this the first time a jacket ever left the closet?”

Mabel clutched it to her chest. “What do you think happened? Do you think it wanted to escape the suffocating confines of domestic life? Did it want to pursue its dream of adorning the greatest matchmaker in history?!”

“I doubt it was the last one,” Dipper said, but Mabel was already slipping it on over her nightgown. 

“Fear not, Buttons Jacket! I, Mabel Pines, shall grant your request!” 

Dipper looked toward the closet with a frown. “Well, I guess we'll have to wait to watch the tape after school. But I would put it back in the closet if I were you, Mabel. You don't want your friends to take it back, or let Waddles chew on it.”

Reluctantly, Mabel agreed. 

But when they got home from school that day, not only was Buttons Jacket back on the floor, it had a few small tears on its sleeves. 

Mabel gasped. “I thought they were asleep during the day! Waddles must have chewed it!”

“I don't think so, Mabel,” Dipper said, opening the closet. There were similar tears on three other jackets. “At least it looks like none on the babies got hurt.”

Mabel was practically in tears. “What's happening? Is some supernatural monster attacking the Jackets?! We have to _do_ something, Dipper!”

“Okay, hang on.”

He set up the video on the floor of their room. Mabel took out her sewing kit and immediately started repairing Buttons. 

“You guys are next, don't worry,” she told the other jackets. 

Dipper started the video at 10:00 PM and hit slow fast forward. But the video had only gone through thirty minutes when they saw a flash of rapid movement. 

Mabel grabbed his arm. “Wait, go back, that was it!” 

“I know, hang on...” Dipper quickly manipulated the film until it was back to the beginning of the movement. “Okay, starting.”

The two of them leaned forward intently. But as they watched the screen, identical looks of horror and dismay dawned on their faces. 

It took about ten minutes. Then it was over. Dipper hit pause. 

“Oh, no,” Mabel whispered. 

Dipper glanced at her, worried. “What do we do?”

“ _We_ can't do anything,” she said slowly. “But I think I know who can.” She gave him a meaningful look. 

Dipper understood instantly what she was getting at and held up his hands. “Yeah, okay, no. Seriously. That's probably a reeeally touchie subject, and I don't think our grunkles –”

“Dipper, trust me on this.”

“But...”

“Look at Buttons, Dipper!” Mabel held it up by the shoulders. A button with a smiley face on it was hanging by its pin, upside-down. “Sewing needles can only help so much. If we don't do something, the whole Jacket family could be torn apart! Literally and figmentally!”

“Figuratively.”

She ignored him. “Even if it's hard to ask, we really need their help.”

Reluctantly, he agreed. 

 

Dipper stayed up until 11:00 PM, the best time to catch their grunkles, if they were awake. Mabel sat next to him, Button Jacket in her lap. She had repaired the seams of every jacket, but somehow even her nearly-invisible seams looked like faint scars on Button's sleeves. 

Dipper gathered his nerve, opened the Skybe app, and called their Grunkles.

It didn't take long for them to pick up. Stan and Ford appeared on the screen after just a few rings, sitting at the table in the Stan O' War. Ford was wearing his usual navy jacket, but Stan was wearing a bright green sweater with an octopus on it, courtesy of Mabel. 

“Hey, kids!” Stan greeted them, holding up a massive lobster shell. “Guess what? We ran into a lobster that told riddles and I won so I got to eat him!”

“He was spouting limericks for the last hour, but I think it's wearing off,” Ford told them. “What've you two been up to?”

“About that,” Dipper started, and he gave his Grunkles a quick run-down of the Jacket family saga (with comments from Mabel). Stan was intrigued at the idea of turning the jackets into a traveling roadshow at $50 a head, while Ford asked several dozen questions about the jackets, right down to the kind of thread Mabel had used to fix them. 

“Fascinating,” he said, scribbling furiously on something just out of sight. “I wonder if the introduction of a foreign material will affect the jackets' ability to animate themselves.”

Mabel looked worried. “I hadn't thought of that. D'you think it'll be okay?”

“We'll know in about five minutes,” Dipper said, checking the time on his laptop. “They usually come to life around 11:30, but never in front of us, so we might have to set up cameras and wait 'till tomorrow morning to know for sure.”

“We can't wait that long, it could happen again!” Mabel cried. 

Ford looked up. “You mean the sudden evidence of an attack?”

“Just lay down some rat traps or somethin',” Stan said with a shrug. “The way Mabel packs all those weird snacks under her mattress, I'm surprised you guys haven't had an animal problem sooner. Well, a _rodent_ problem, anyway...” He shot a dark look at Waddles, who was flopped behind Mabel, snoring loudly. 

“It's not a rodent problem,” Dipper said. He'd relaxed when telling Ford about the jackets, but now that they were coming to the problem, his gut was starting to tense up again. “Um...I got a video of what happened last night, so you can see it. Hang on.”

He clicked a few times and a video screen popped up in the bottom-right corner of both computers. He hit play. 

He'd placed it at the start of the event. The jackets woke up like usual – and then Polka Dots and Buttons immediately started fighting. The handkerchief babies around them fluttered in a panic, and Puffy Green one tried to stop the fight, but several of the pins on Buttons had come open and tore Puffy Green's sleeves with a loud rip. Two other jackets tried to intervene with the same result, and finally Polka Dots wrestled Buttons to the door, shoved it open – and then threw Buttons out. The closet door slammed shut, with Buttons outside on the ground. Buttons flapped its sleeves angrily, started to pull itself away from the door, then stopped. After a moment it flopped over on its back and slowly, soundlessly, collapsed. 

The video ended. 

Ford's face had become perfectly still and emotionless. Stan looked a little nauseous. 

“So?” Dipper asked, not quite meeting his grunkles' eyes. “I – I didn't really want to ask, but –”

“We have to help them!” Mabel cried, pressing Button to her chest. “They just fought and then they threw Buttons out – twice!! I don't speak jacket but I'm sure everyone's got a huge tear in their little fabric hearts! Please, Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford, you guys have been through this before – you've gotta talk to them before they spend thirty years miserably pining for each other!”

“Well that wasn't an obvious reference at all,” Dipper muttered. “Look,” he said to his grunkles, “I told Mabel this might be a little...sensitive...so if you guys don't want to –”

“No, no,” Ford said quickly. “I don't mind helping you with your fieldwork, Dipper. It's simply that Stan and I have never properly...er...”

“We don't do squishies,” Stan said flatly. 

“But you guys have made up already!” Mabel protested. “I mean, you have, right?”

Stan shrugged. “If we haven't, we'd have killed each other by now. I'd like to see you try bein' on a boat with only this guy for company for several weeks straight.”

“Hey!”

“Point is, we just never really talked about it. I mean –” Stan leaned back, gesturing to the small, warmly lit living quarters of the Stan O' War. “We got the ocean, the boat, and I got my nerdbot back. Plus a few mermaid babes who may or may not want to date me.”

“If they ever forget that you stole their crown jewels,” Ford muttered. 

Mabel sniffed and her eyes brimmed with tears. “But...they're supposed to be a _family_...”

“Alright alright, geez!” Stan said quickly. “Dipper, quit making your sister cry!”

“Wh – I didn't – !”

“So you'll help?” Mabel asked, sniffing. 

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

“We should look at this as an exciting opportunity!” Ford said, somewhat brightly. “Unless I'm mistaken, which I never am –”

Stan coughed something that sounded like “Bill”. 

“– which I _rarely_ am, these jackets are actually sentient clothes from Dimension 212^, where a fashion faux pas could mean a life sentence as a cleaning rag! I was practically de-vested of my trench coat upon my arrival, but this multigenerational mini-community presents a fascinating opportunity to study them at close range!”

“Great!” Stan got up. “Welp, have fun nerding out, I'm gonna go –”

“Sit right back down,” Ford said loudly, grabbing the back of Stan's sweater and yanking him back. “I can and will find another riddling lobster and see how you like listening to 'There once was a Nerdbot from Jersey.'”

“Well there _was._ ”

Mabel smothered a laugh. 

“Fine, then I get to go first,” Stan said. “Alright you fashion wannabes, here's the deal: I don't care who started it, suck it up and make up or I'll take a pair of scissors to you the next time I visit the gremlins. Capiche?”

Ford rolled his eyes. “How characteristically mature of you, Stanley. You can't just 'violence' a problem away. ”

“What? I'd like to see you do better!” 

“Well – it would help if the button jacket admitted that he'd made a mistake. And,” he said, holding up a hand as Stan opened his mouth. “It would also help if the polka dot jacket sorted out its priorities. However justified the polka dot jacket may feel, it appears to have had a very close familial relationship with the buttons jacket. There is very little in the world more important than family, and nothing worse than losing it.”

“Can't argue there,” Stan muttered, his voice hoarse. “Alright, so the Button thingie may have made a mistake. It might've just – not wanted the dot thing to know about it. Or leave. But it shoulda been thinkin' about the dot thing, since they're family, and how to fix it up so that they were _both_ happy, instead of just one of 'em...”

 

Stan and Ford continued in that vein for a solid thirty minutes. Then Mabel put Buttons back in the closet, Dipper checked to make sure his cameras were still set up, and they closed the closet door. They had about half an hour more before the jackets usually became active, and even though it was late, all four of them wanted to stay up to see if their attempts at reconciliation had had any effect. 

“I'm sure it did,” Mabel said confidently, hooking her chin over Dipper's shoulder (they were sitting on her bed). “After hearing Grunkle Stan's story about the New Jersey Devil, there is literally nothing that could make me believe in family more!” 

Stan grinned and wrapped an arm around Ford's shoulders. “You shoulda seen this guy, kids! It was like somethin' outta one of those detective comics. He tracked it down like it was nothin' – and then gave it all up!”

“Gave it up for _you_ ,” Ford corrected, grinning back and nudging Stan in the ribs. “Which, in retrospect, was probably a mercy to the NJD. You probably would've tried to make money off of it as some carnie attraction!”

“Darn right I would!”

 _Scritch, scritch._

“Wait!” Dipper whispered. “D'you guys hear that?”

“Do the thing with the video!” Mabel urged, and Dipper clicked on the camera icon at the bottom of the screen. As before, when he'd shown their grunkles the video, a square popped up in the corner of their Skybe. It showed a live feed of what was happening inside the closet. 

Puffy Green Jacket was the first one to move. It reached out and put one sleeve firmly on Polka Dot's shoulder, as if to hold it off from attacking Buttons. Buttons, meanwhile, had re inflated itself – but hung on its hanger, stiff as if it had been badly starched. The other jackets looked equally tense, waiting. Handkerchiefs and baby T-shirts fluttered around the bottom of the closet, sensing the weight of the tension like a thunderstorm. 

Buttons' hanger started to rattle. That's when they noticed it – the jacket's shoulders were shaking slightly. 

“Oh, no,” Mabel whispered. “Is it...crying?”

But before Dipper could answer, Polka Dot tore away from Puffy Green Jacket, launched itself at Buttons and began waving its sleeves forcefully, gesticulating so harshly Dipper could practically hear it yelling. Buttons took it in silence at first, then started gesturing back, and Puffy Green Jacket moved in to stop them just as both jackets came flying at each other, sleeves extended – 

– and then Polka Dots wrapped both sleeves around Buttons, squeezing it tightly. Buttons froze, then hugged back just as fiercely. Around them the other jackets breathed a collective sigh of relief. 

“It _worked!_ ” Mabel whispered. She grabbed Dipper's shoulder and started shaking him. “It worked it worked it really hey what's that?” 

A weird light was coming from nowhere and everywhere inside the closet. The baby handkerchiefs and T-shirts climbed up from the floor and the other jackets scooped the babies into pockets and inside their chests. The jackets grouped themselves together, sleeves wrapped around each other in a giant group hug. Then, slowly, Dipper realized he could see the back of the closet right through Pink Jacket. 

“They're disappearing!” Dipper exclaimed. 

Ford sighed. “Your closet doesn't happen to run through a ley line, does it?”

“A ley – what?”

“Simply put, it's a line of interdimensional, magical energy. 212^s are nomadic, and they use ley lines to travel from dimension to dimension. My guess is there was a surge planned for tonight, and this is when they're returning home.”

“Buttons would've been left out of the closet,” Dipper realized. “They would've been separated from their family. We got through to them just in time.” 

The Jackets had nearly disappeared altogether by now. Just before they faded out of sight, Buttons turned to Dipper's camera and waved one sleeve in farewell. Polka Dot clutched Buttons all the more tightly, and together the pair of them vanished in a soundless flash of light. 

Mabel immediately hopped off her bed and opened the door. “They really _are_ gone,” she said. 

“Oh, Mabel,” Dipper said, but she turned around with a smile on her face. 

“They left together,” she said, smiling wider and wider. “They stayed a family. Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford – you guys are the best, sweetest gross old men ever.” 

“Er...thank you?” Ford said. 

“No, no, she meant it as a compliment,” Dipper assured him. 

Stan grinned. “In that case, can I get thirty copies of all these videos you made? I can sell 'em online at fifty – no, a hundred bucks each!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NYYYEEEEEUUUUUUUM!! Slidin' into Diptember 1 hour and 32 minutes before it ends! LET'S HEAR IT FOR DEADLINES!! (On second thought let's not XD) 
> 
> Hope you liked it! Check out my other works and leave me prompts! HAPPY DIPTEMBER!!!


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